Chris Harlan
Forum Replies Created
-
[Oliver Peters] ” PProCS6 was more a UI overhaul than anything else”
Of course, for most of us bobble-heads out there the UI is what its mostly about.
[Oliver Peters] “The Adobe approach is simply a closer fit into the FCP “legacy” workflow than Avid is. “
Actually, one of the things that is exciting about it, is the degree to which it is a closer fit to both FCP and MC. Sort of the best of both worlds approach. Not that they actually got the best of both worlds in all instances, but it is definitely a middle ground that I’m fond of.
One MC inovation that no one seems to want to flatter most sincerely is the Source time line. It can be amazingly useful, and one of the basic editorial elements I really like about MC. But, maybe I’m alone in fetishizing it.
-
[Walter Soyka] “There’s a lot to like in Motion, but it’s also pretty easy to bang your head on the low ceiling as you step outside of titling.
“Absolutely. Back when round-tripping actually worked, the best thing about Motion–from my POV–was the way it worked with FCP. I tended to think of it as an extension of FCP, and used it that way. I’ve removed whole actors from scenes where they’ve intruded with the masking tool, created effects and transitions that wouldn’t be possible with normal plugins, and have quickly created dynamite titles that no NLE titler has ever been capable of. But, I have always thought of it as a module of FCP, and not something that competes at any serious level with AE. It was much more comparable to Boris modules with Avid [I’d say “is” but since round-tripping is gone from X, I think it deserves a past tense.]
I should also add that, since I come from the television world (as opposed to film), I tend to see modules like Motion as some sort of incredible mutant descendant of Chyron, and not as an animation package.
-
[Joseph W. Bourke] “I can’t think of a faster way to be considered bush league by my clients than when they send me a Photoshop or Illustrator file and I tell them I can’t open it.
And this guy thinks Motion is better than After Effects – it’s a toy! Presets for the talentless!
“Frankly Joseph, I don’t think you’ve spent enough time with Motion to so blithely disregard it. I’ve used it to great effect (pun intended) since its inception. Certainly, it has presets if you care to use them, but I’ve gotten a lot of millage out of the program without them. You didn’t have to look any further than its strength as a masking tool which sat inside the FCP timeline to know its worth. The use of “behaviors” as an animating tool (not only x,y,z direction, but very granular behaviors like gravity, repulsion, attraction) and its unique (at the time of introduction, and for several years after) use of GPU accelerated preview made it a very interesting environment to experiment in. It’s later implementation of 2.5D lighting and camera tools made what was already an extremely useful titling tool into something very fast and quite remarkable. I think that if you were actually aware of its facile but deep granularity, you would find it very difficult if not impossible to call it a toy.
“Better” than AE, certainly not. But, also, not a toy.
-
[Bill Davis] “Most of the modern digital delivery “broadcast” specs I see specify no bars, no tone. :30 (not 29.9!) frames wall to wall as a digital file. “
I still B&T whenever I lay off to tape, as does everyone I know. I would be shocked if any of my clients accepted work without it. Remember, however, that B&T were devised for analog reproduction, and though they can be occasionally useful with digital files, their main reason for existence is to provide calibration for analog playback and duplication.
[Bill Davis] “It’s going to get dumped to a play-out server by some 18 year old “technician” overnight and the computer just triggers the file – whatever it is.
“That’s not what I’m seeing. I’m actually seeing the reverse of that. I find that my technical skills are an advantage over competitors who get technical rejections on a regular basis. I’m seeing more people in the field who don’t understand the technical side, which is costing them. I’m also not seeing any relaxation of delivery standards, though they’ve changed as analog has become moribund.
[Bill Davis] ” even have a few deliverables that specify the very specific file naming format and I’m pretty sure that these aren’t even seen let alone touched by humans. “
File naming formats have replaced box and tape labels. While they certainly can be useful for automation, they are equally useful for run-of-the-mill identification, as well being able to easily autofill a spread sheet. I’m having trouble seeing anything sinister about them.
-
[Franz Bieberkopf] “Mark,
I, for one, doubt it this “undoubtability”.
If software doesn’t support my workflow and approach, it is not “easier” to use – it is unusable. This is quite aside from the severe limitations you note.
“Yes, I second that. Mark, however pleased you may be with FCPX, its pretty clear that there is abundant doubt about.
-
[Michael Gissing] “If you want the Duck tools as well and they are no longer up on the web, I downloaded them all.
“Thanks, man! I may take you up on that. The Boris stuff works amazingly well, though. Its sorta like just as everything got perfect, it all fell apart.
-
[Michael Gissing] “Thankfully the free issue of Automatic Duck means that we can at least go from AVID to FCP7 with relative ease via AAF.”
FWIW, I’m using the Boris transfer plugins (that use AFF) with a lot of success, though you of course have to pay for those.
-
[Oliver Peters] “What made FCP “ready for primetime” was the work done by folks at AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, etc. Without them taking the risk, FCP would have been stuck as a hobbyist’s DV editing tool.”
Hear, hear!
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “I’m sorry I keep being “that guy” that always chimes in on SAN posts”
No! I find it interesting. I haven’t been working with a SAN for the last few years, other than when I sit in with a company that has one, but I’ve always been interested in networking, so I live vicariously through your posts.
-
[Shane Ross] “The drawback to the Matrox MXO2 line is that there are different drivers for all the NLEs…different one for Avid, different one for Adobe and different one for FCP. And if you use the box for all three, you should have a different OS drive for each, as you cannot have all three drivers on one OS partition. AND…if you switch between apps, you need to “flash” the firmware on the unit to get it to work with the drivers on that boot. Yeah…it can get complicated.”
Yes, and as much as I like my Mini for my laptop, this drives me crazy. And probably away, when I get around to it.